Prologue 14
The whirring of the chainsaws and crashing trees grew closer and closer, "We've got to get out of here!" cried Flinty as she awoke in her hollow.
"We've got to do something about this," said Flinty the phascogale, "this is not the way our land is supposed to be.”
"We agree," chorused the residents of the Greta Valley trees.
"As leader of this meeting I am very ashamed to say that I don't know what to do," sighed Flinty, "but it's getting early and we need to gather some food, so we will speak about this in a couple of nights.”
Back at Flinty's cosy hollow she looked forward to seeing her beloved boyfriend Fergus the phascogale who would be there asking about her meeting. But to Flinty's horror and surprise Fergus was curled up in the corner shaking uncontrollably and desperately gasping for breath. Flinty gasped; she knew what this meant: Fergus was dying. A couple of nights ago when Flinty met Fergus he told her that she was the last Phascogale he would mate with before he passed through the night. When he told her this, Flinty decided that they should mate straight away, so they did. It's kind of gross how they mate so I won't go into the details. Anyway, even though Flinty knew this was coming she was still devastated as she reached out and held Fergus's paw.
"Just promise me one thing darling," rasped Fergus; "you will call one of your joeys Fergus.”
"Of course," replied Flinty, but she was to late, there was no response.
3 hours later
3 hours after the passing of Fergus, Flinty was scurrying across tree branches feeling pleased with herself; she had found a beautiful spot to bury Fergus and she ate lots of scrumptious cicadas on the way.
WHIIRR! CRASH!
”Whaa—what was that?" but Flinty already knew the answer to her own question-the tree cutting company called the ‘tree cutters' were at Greta Valley. Flinty raced towards her hollow looking for shelter, but to her devastation where her hollow should have been was a pathway of fallen timber and smashed branches. This would have been major heartbreak for any creature living in this hollow and it was. So Flinty did the only thing she could do: she ran.
4 hours later
Flinty had been running through the trees for hours, she was tired and hungry. She slowed to a walk and out of the corner of her sharp night eyes she spied a small camo green box labelled with the numbers ’26' and the letters ‘GVLG' (aka the Greta Valley Landcare Group)."Huh," thought Flinty, "looks like a nest" and with that she scurried into the nestbox and drifted off to sleep.
Epilogue 9 days later
Flinty gave birth to 6 joeys: Frannie, Frida, Fiona, Freya, Flora and finally…Fergus.
Written by Harriet Day, Age 9
Oxley Primary School, North East Victoria